


Altered Spaces

by afrocurl



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-06 19:53:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4234515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wanda returns and can't handle what life is now.</p><p>Only she's very good at hiding and Vision is very good at deducing why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Altered Spaces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [templeandarche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/templeandarche/gifts).



Reality will not matter. Nothing will matter. To Wanda, she is sure of that right now. There are only a few parts of her life that do matter, and the one that means - meant - the most is gone. 

If she believes what everyone else says. 

Why should she? She and Pietro came to them to help, but they are all still Stark sycophants or acolytes. Liars, all of them. They do not understand her pain. 

Their pain. It has been their pain since they were ten and it will be her’s until she dies.

No one will understand, except Pietro, who is not at her side with a comforting hand on her knee.

The transporter takes her back to the Helicarrier, where she knows she will not find any comfort there.

-

There is something off to all of his senses when they return, but the team is too busy with the fallout of Pietro for him to vocalize it. Wanda is obviously withdrawn, as she sits and allows her power to flow between her fingers like a cat’s cradle rather than respond to the calls for her opinion on funeral arrangements.

Her energy is off, but he cannot see where it will lead. 

The Vision only wishes he could.

-

In quiet moments, Natasha hears Wanda mutter. It starts off as snippets of conversations she might have with someone else, but soon the words begin to sound like full conversations. Full discussions.

With no one around, Natasha worries before talking with Steve and Fury.

They need to know what one of their own is thinking.

-

He knows pain and he knows how death affects someone, but Steve has never seen this. Since Natasha told him and Fury of Wanda’s mutterings, the facility changes in subtle ways. There are signs of Pietro’s presence - or flashes of him - that Steve feels now and again.

It should be impossible like him living to see the twenty first century. He long ago realized that he was from a different time than the rest of the world, but seeing Wanda and knowing that she is - a bit - like him and watching her fall apart, it hurts worse than knowing that Bucky is still drifting.

He thinks it should be impossible for her to recreate her dead brother, but as he does, he remembers Hill’s words from when they first met the twins, “He’s fast and she’s weird.”

Weird might just explain what it means when, in flashes, he hears, “You didn’t see that coming.”

-

No one has said anything about what she does and she likes it best that way. She goes to the training sessions - learns how to fight like Natasha while also wielding her powers - and when she starts to flex her powers to remind her of Pietro, everything feels better.

She is better, she tells herself.

Pietro holds her hand and she believes her own mind. He whispers that they’re strong and powerful.

She believes his words, and allows that belief to wrap around herself each night; no more tears shed at the loss of Pietro.

-

Evidence mounts that Wanda’s gift is at work. He can see - feel even - Pietro at her side each day. She no longer tries to muffle her conversations with him, and she retreats from training as soon as she finishes each day. 

He thinks that there should be something done for her, but he also knows how fragile her mind is and how tenuous her grip on the world is at present.Rather than send off more alarms to anyone in command, he watches and tries to formulate a solution that helps everyone.

He thinks that any option he arrives at will not please anyone except Wanda. It might be best that way.

-

Sparse light reaches her eyes before she fully realizes that she should have woken an hour ago for training. However, as she looks around her room, there is nothing familiar about her previous months of living. There is no window to her right that could pour in light, there is no utilitarian furniture of the Avengers.

Instead, she sees her childhood room - or some facsimile of it - with another bed to her left. A bed which has someone sleeping in it with a shock of bleached hair sticking out.

It feels right for Pietro to be at her side, to be with her, even if she has no idea where this here is. Pietro’s body was limp and cold last she saw it, but here, he is alive and warm. Do her own powers work on herself?

Shuffling her way out of sheets and blankets, she walks to the window and tries to piece together more of what she knows and thinks harder on where she is.

-

Wanda fails to report for training one morning and no sooner is her absence noted then does he request permission to halt everything.

“She is not well, Sir, and she needs someone to help her,” he says to Rogers and Fury.

“And you’re the one who can help her?” Fury asks, his voice masking none of his cynicism. 

“I’m the only one to see how far she has fallen into her own world. She will re-create what she wants to be alive again. She does not feel alive without him.”

Rogers nods and Fury follows shortly after.

“This is your mission. Don’t make me regret it,” Fury says before he dismisses the room.

There is very little that Vision can do to make Fury regret the decision. He only hopes sorting Wanda’s pain will not take too long.

-

Pietro’s voice is soft at her side, his hand warm against her own. She has not felt like this since before HYDRA found them both and she loves the way that his presence makes her feel.

For the first time in months, she feels alive.

-

Training halts as soon as Vision’s plan starts, leaving Natasha anxious. She never does well with idle time, especially when there are new recruits that need to learn how to work as a team.

All of them have skills that make part of this easier - Rhodey and Wilson are all trained as the military sees fit and that transfers over well enough.But Vision and Wanda need more than that. And currently they are wrapped up in some imaginary world Wanda created to ease her grief.

Grief Natasha can understand, but she cannot understand warping reality to deal with it.

-

Vision appears almost out of thin air one day as she sits while Pietro zooms around their rooms. He should not be here, but she welcomes another person into her world. 

“You should stay,” she says, and she means it. “It gets lonely with just the two of us.”

“It will always be lonely with the two of you,” he says, as if he knows more than he lets on.

“Then you’ll stay?”

“I will stay.”

-

Staying does not change the results of his work, which vexes him. He is meant to ease Wanda out of her altered reality, but the reality she created provides her with comfort and support. She will not have any of that should he complete this task and bring her back.

He is not sure which of the outcomes will be worse.

-

Rogers sits, impatient, as the days drift and Vision and Wanda fail to appear back into the real world.

But as he waits for news, Vision appears. “We have a problem,” he says.

“I gathered as much. What’s wrong?”

“She is happy there, Sir. She has her brother and a peace that she will not have if we return her here.”

“But she can’t stay there, can she?”

“She creates her own world and so far it appears stable. She is not harming anyone.”

“Except herself. _When_ she loses control, she’ll suffer.”

“We do not know if she will harm herself. You can only guess.”

“I’ve seen her powers, Vision. She can’t maintain her own peace for long. She’ll warp it sooner or later.”

“Then I say we let her do that on her own. I will not create any more disturbances than I already have.”

Rogers nods, says, “Then head back and wait for another week before we meet again.”

“Agreed.”

-

“Why did you leave?” she asks when Vision comes back to her side. She has been busy with Pietro in his absence, enjoying time with her brother that had no other purpose than for them to simply be together.

“I had business to attend to,” is all he says, though she can tell he lies.

“You lie,” she replies.

“For you, I must.”

“But why?”

“This. You cannot continue to live with Pietro at your side.”

“You cannot know that for sure!” she yells, her heart racing at his statement.

“I do. I have seen what this does to you. It is not an end you want.”

“And my life without my brother is worth living?”

“It can be, if you let it. Grieve his death and let us help you.”

“No one has ever helped before.”

“This is different. You are different now. With Pietro at your side, you will turn the world to ash, burn it to the ground to maintain your illusion. Right now, the only people who see this world are the three of us, but the more you believe it, the more it will consume everyone.”

“I am nobody without Pietro.”

“But you will be if you try. Let us help you. Natasha will help you. I will help you. Rogers will help you. We all know loss and we all know how to survive it.”

She cries as his words wash over her. She wants to deny what he says, but part of her knows that his power is beyond her’s and he must have some clue of the future.

She looks up to see Pietro at Vision’s side and she quietly whispers, “I love you,” before she watches Pietro fade into thin air.

She feels hollow. She feels scared. She feels for the first time in weeks.

-

Natasha hears screams from Wanda’s room and runs full force to see what has happened. Vision is at Wanda’s side, but who Natasha focuses on is the small fragile woman at his side.

“Let me talk to her.”

Vision nods, walks away slowly.

Natasha feels the world shift when he leaves, and for the first time in weeks, it begins to feel right.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [redacted] for their beta help. Any remaining mistakes are my own.


End file.
